EFFORTPOST March of the Kommando Wurms

Greetings Dramatards!

How are you guys, I'm boiling alive! Thanks to the Gods of luck, this week has been the ONLY week in which I had to work outside in the field every fricking day, during a High Pressure Front dominating southern africa, and spurring on dust storms from the dry heat all over the country My think my brains are literally fricking fried.

Anyways, I saw a remarkable animal in the veld today - the Kommandowurm, South Africa's most fearsome famine causing pest.

Most people when it comes to famine inducing swarms, think of grasshoppers and their mutations into locust swarms which obliterate crops and any vegetation or bio matter visible across the horizon. I've written about the devastation African Finches/Vinke cause to the crops/livelihoods and food-security of many african countries - to the extent in which desperate South African farmers even went t such extreme degrees as to fricking use explosives to destroy known treelines in which a Finch Swarm nests during the night, in the hopes of culling the swarm.

https://rdrama.net/post/201913/marseyflagsouthafrica-drama-10-15-years-ago

But few people expect a puny worm of all animals to be a pest, at least a famine-causing pest of biblical proportions. But just like the teensy tiny African Finch bird, there is great strength and devastation in large numbers, and when Kommando worm swarms strike, they can literally devour hundreds of hectares of farmland crops within hours.

The Kommando worm is the larva stage of an unassuming moth whom few people could differentiate from their household cousins. The larwe feeds on all forms of grasses and plat seeds, including seeds from mielies, rice, sorghum, corn, wheat, sugarcanes, and even peanuts. They would even devour all of the non-bark foliage of mall enough trees, leaving summertime saplings as barren as if mid-winter.

The Kommando worm obtained its name from the early dutch/proto-boers who saw the worm swarms march in concert similar to the style of famous Army-ants. This was during a time when Kommando was the got to word for any small military warband or civil security detail which patrolled between farms and villiages as a proto-police force by the citizens of a town or farming community.

There's no definitive prediction for Kommando worm swarms, but they tend to explode during times of extreme droughts, just prior or during the rain-season of South Africa (October - March).

Kommando worms are not typical swarming pestilent insects, and don't behave similar in the manner in which Locusts swarm, as a byproduct of their natural cycles.

The moth form lives about 10 days before dying of hunger, and lays upwards of a 1000 eggs in that time. The eggs hatch in 2-5 days, and become fully grown larvas in 2 weeks. The worms turn from bright green into their famous and dreaded dark striped colours

https://www.agro.basf.co.za/af/Dienste/Plaaggids/Plae-(Insekte-Knaagdiere)/Kou-insekte/Kommandowurm

Yet most times when Kommando worms appear, it's as if out of nowhere, since proof of their previous presence had been absent, and they would appear very suddenly, before farmers could for example obtain warning signs such as fledgeling tiny hatched worms, instead it's usually the fully grown "adult" black striped kommando worms devastating farmland literally overnight!

One hypothesis from the frequent observations and witnesses of Kommando worm swarms breaking out suddenly overnight, is that Kommando worm "troops" migrate over hundreds of kilometers -

they can start in Mozambique, and end in Free State within mere weeks.

Both the moths and worms migrate as groups, and both the moths and worms are extremely mobile and prone to very long distance migration. Oh and Kommando worms can exist in the entirety of Eastern Africa the continent.

In the Youtube video opening of this post, the farmer basically shows a great example of a Kommandowurm swarming outbreak, the long streams and rivers of black are millions upon millions kommandowurms infesting his lands; basically this guy is already turbo fricked or at least all crops within the video frame is beyond help or saving as the worms had already streamed past any barrier and are gorging themselves upon all of the agricultural plants here.

GUIDELINES IN RESISTING KOMMANDO WORMS:

https://www.landbou.com/landbou/nuus/riglyne-om-kommandowurms-te-troef-20170914

Even up until 2017, no effective chemical or poison had been discovered which were effective or safe to use against Kommandowurm incursions. The RSA Department Agriculture, Fisseries and Forestry had published aid for both commercial farmers and subsistence farms in the Homelands of SA, so that south africans may prepare themselves in the coming decade for defending their farms against this pestilence.

Above is a whole long boring list which GrainSA and the government had deemed to be viable (but not definatively 100% effective) chemicals usable for commercial and subsistence farmers in the protection of their crops (against kommando worms specifically). Many problems are that these poisons and chemicals are expensive and difficult to transfer where needed. Sometimes they are sprayed by either plane or tractor; sometimes even by "hand", where farmhands portable pneumatic pumps in a backpack kit (this is usually what medium or subsistence farmers use). Point is though SA farmers are not idle in their experimentation and reseach, no pesticide has been foolproof.

THE 1000% FOOLPROOF KOMMANDO WORM CONTROL METHOD!!!!

When my father was a young boy in highschool, my father would regale me, the discipline and control of Afrikaners were pretty hardcore, even within school system. Almost military like.

Men/boys in "Koshuis" or School-Residence or School-Hostels, were expected to have their beds and linen made up every morning at 7-oclok. The Household-master would inspect every room, bed and school-uniform and if they were less than barracks-perfect, then corporeal punishment would follow in quick succession. There were no nonsense in those times about child abuse or human rights, only strict absolute discipline. Boys could be called anytime by the principle to assist locals in a small town, like aiding the local retirement home in moving beds and helping the elderly with hard manual tasks. This was normal and could be a weekly event.

One day, during hot humid summer, the Head of sports, during end year Exams, the school head of Sport and facilities, would burst into the main School Hall.

His face was red with panic, horror and exasperation. He shouted that a Kommando worm swarm had just originated West of the school grounds and were destroying everything in their path, including local gardens and backyard mini-farms.

Even WORSE! They were heading directly for the school's two RUGBY FIELDS!!

The principle ordered every boy from grade 7-12 to race back to their dormitory, and put on their school boots. That afternoon, 200 boys, all male teachers, and several dozen bystanders and local farmhands (black and white), on that hot and humid summer day, sometime in 1980ish, would stand like a greek phalanx before the school's two rugby fields, and crush thousands upon thousands of black-striped Kommandowurms to mush before they could devour the well-maintained and mowed grass of the Rugby fields!!

There was no mercy for the squemish, there was no point in saying no, every man with boots within reach, was expected to help hold the line against the endless swarm of Kommando worms migrating past the school grounds.

Ichor and worm guts would plaster and cake the sides of the Rugby fields, and several exhausting hours later, the commando swarm relented and died out. Women and girls would bring water and wet clothes for the men and boys in the foreground, relentlessly crushing worm after worm with their boots, like trashcompactor at the scrapyard.

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=571820076746878

https://www.facebook.com/blommeboer/posts/ons-het-die-laaste-ruk-verskeie-navrae-gekry-oor-die-amaryllis-borer-of-lelie-bo/564079524026838

It sounds like I'm making this up, but but forming long human lines with farmhands and anyone you could grab with heavy work boots, and crushing the frickers was a legitimate strategy and method of combatting the frickers before their swarm came to your crops or garden. This was of course with the caveat on how much manpower could be gathered, and what the size of the swarm was. Sometimes the panicked and desperate endeavors of only a handful of farmhands would not be nearly enough to stop the migrating swarm of worms, from bypassing the poor south african farmers and feasting upon the crops of mielies, maize or wheat.

Physically crushing worms with boots, bakkies or tractors repeatedly driving forwards and reversing across a killing field was also employed by desperate farmers, with similarly mixed results in the past and even current present. Yet even with there being no magical bullseye poison specific to Kommanwurms, pesticide has still been proven to be more efficient in protecting large, hectares-spanning crops, from worm swarms, compared to the feeble attemps of like a dozen farmhands in crushing millions and millions of flood like kommando worms.

On a happier note, that day in 1980, my father and co, succeeded in saving their Rugby Fields for the Rugby season!

Regular once a semester warming in the above pic about Kommandowurm swarm outbreaks.

https://heidelbergnigelheraut.co.za/21457/gevreesde-kommandowurm-heidelberg-gevind

Even countries far away from RSA, like Uganda struggle with Kommando or Army worms devastating their agriculture.

https://kosmos.com.na/uganda-sukkel-met-kommando-wurm

Anyways that's all I got